I have been eagerly awaiting the release of this typeface for quite some time now, ever since the studio behind it—MashCreative—posted a rebranding exercise they mocked up for Royal Mail.

And, finally, it is released!

In the words of MashCreative:

Designed to be used as a genuine alternative to Arial, Helvetica or Gotham, RM Regular is the perfect choice for professionals.

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Designed in 2011, RM Regular is the first font to be released from London based design studio Mash Creative.

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The Opentype font includes a full charcter and glyph set which supports 47 languages.

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A limited edition of 2 x 50 A2 type specimen posters will be made available absolutely FREE – yes that’s right – FREE! for the first 100 people to purchase the font exclusively from www.HypeForType.com

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The posters have been screen printed in silver and purple ink on 200gsm GF Smith Accent Smooth Glacier White stock. Available in 50 x silver on purple and 50 x purple on silver, each print is hand numbered and signed by Mark Bloom – founder of Mash Creative and designer of the font. Posters will be rolled into tubes and can be posted worldwide.

How Does It Compare To Helvetica?

When comparingtypefaces, I nearly always start with the letter a. For me, it is the character that waves the flag for the rest of the typeface.

The differences in this one letter alone are self-evident. Though RM Regular exhibits a similar curvature to Helvetica Neue’s lines, the similarities stop there. The stem of RM Regular terminates completely flat whereas Helvetica Neue flicks off into a tail. Other intricate differences include RM Regular’s slightly shorter finial and the abrupt connection of the bowl to the stem.

It’s in RM Regular’s other letters that we get an idea of where the big alterations are.

Helvetica Neue’s lowercase l is almost completely indistinguishable from its uppercase I. It is one of the reasons why Helvetica Neue doesn’t make a good UI typeface (try reading “Illicit” at small sizes). RM Regular works better for body copy because of the tail on its lowercase l. A tall x-height and slightly narrower proportions means that RM Regular works equally well for body copy as well as for display purposes.

You can buy RM Regular from HypeForType for the reasonable value of £35. If you’re quick enough, the first 100 people to buy this typeface also get, for free, a beautifully designed, limited edition A2 type specimen poster designed by MashCreative themselves.

Also, fear not: I was assured that the team are also looking into light and bold weights in the future as well.